


Eye to the Telescope

by InterstellarBlue (nagi_schwarz), nagi_schwarz



Series: Prompt Fills 2020 [5]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: M/M, Mild Voyeurism, Surprise Pairing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-20
Updated: 2020-02-20
Packaged: 2021-02-28 01:54:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,193
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22815772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nagi_schwarz/pseuds/InterstellarBlue, https://archiveofourown.org/users/nagi_schwarz/pseuds/nagi_schwarz
Summary: In which Rodney is enjoying his telescope on New Lantea for the first time and ends up gazing at something besides stars instead.Written for the album titles comment_fic prompt: "Stargate Atlantis, Rodney McKay +/ any, Eye to the Telescope (KT Tunstall)"
Series: Prompt Fills 2020 [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1610299
Comments: 14
Kudos: 45
Collections: Bite Sized Bits of Fic from 2020





	Eye to the Telescope

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Brumeier](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brumeier/gifts).



People always associated scientists with microscopes. Rodney was a scientist, so why didn’t he have a microscope? Well, he wasn’t a plebeian like a botanist or a chemist. He was a physicist. So it made perfect sense that he had a telescope instead of a microscope. (His respect for O’Neill went up a tiny notch when he heard the man describe, one time in passing, his own fine telescope.)

Even though he’d traveled the stars via stargate and spaceship, looking at them never got old, and now that he was living on a new planet - a  _ new planet, _ it still amazed him to be able to say that, even though the expedition had moved to New Lantea under less than ideal circumstances - there were new night skies to study. Sure, he could look at the Ancient database and see detailed star maps, but it wasn’t the same thing. For all that he was a genius and did well pondering very abstract concepts, in some ways he was very visceral, liked to ground himself in the here and now.

So after all the chaos died down, he got his telescope set up on the balcony attached to his quarters, and he gathered citrus-free snacks and a nice beverage (not the paint-thinner poison from Radek’s still) and settled in for a nice night of stargazing. The sky was clear, and Atlantis was the only light-source on the entire planet, so the sky was bright with stars.

Rodney was decent at simple sketches of things, because as a scientist, being able to draw out a problem or a concept was an important skill, and he decided to make a preliminary map of the night sky. He probably wasn’t the only one who liked looking at the stars, but he was probably the only one who’d considered making a map and picking out constellations and choosing names for them.

He had identified several and was sketching out possible shapes for them. What he named them would inform what their shapes should be, which was backwards from the way constellations were traditionally named, he was sure, but it wasn’t like he’d never watched clouds float by and considered what they looked like. He was more than capable of doing the same with stars.

And then his radio squawked and Radek was cursing in three languages - he also spoke Russian - and Rodney started violently. He almost spilled his wine, and he had to grab his pencils before they rolled off the little table he’d set up, and then he went to get his radio and address the issue.

An hour later, the problem had been solved - Rodney would admit it was something only he could assist with, so he wasn’t too annoyed at Radek for interrupting his otherwise peaceful evening - and Rodney settled back into the chair in front of his telescope. He leaned forward to peer in the eyepiece and get his bearings back and - 

Dammit. He must have knocked his telescope askew when Radek first radioed him. Now it wasn’t pointed at the sky at all, was pointed at a patch of water and the end of a pier.

Rodney sighed and went to reposition the telescope, and then there was a shadow on the end of the pier. He stared. Was it some kind of sea creature native to this new planet? Was Atlantis about to be invaded by Lovecraftian fish-men? Rodney fumbled for his radio, but then the shadow resolved itself into the figure of a man.

A naked man, pale in the starlight, gleaming with water.

Rodney’s mouth went dry. The man had broad shoulders and was thick with muscle, had a stocky build similar to Rodney’s. He had dark hair, though his face was hidden where he was toweling his hair off. Rodney guessed he was a soldier of some kind, because he had tattoos, on one his upper right arm, one on his chest, both intricate, detailed designs. Not that scientists couldn’t have tattoos or muscles like that, but.

Wow.

It was so wrong, but it was so easy to stare as the man dried himself off one limb at a time, sweeping the towel over his skin, gloriously unselfconscious of his nakedness. That far out on a pier, no one would be able to see him in detail even if they happened to be looking right at him out their window. Someone might not even be able to tell he was completely naked.

It had been a long time since Rodney had had the chance to just  _ look _ at a man like this. Sure, he’d seen plenty of his comrades in the buff at this point, because after a long and muddy march, cleanliness was more important than dignity in the locker room, and Canadians weren’t nearly as prudish as Americans anyway. That soldier was probably one of the European contingent, then, German maybe.

Rodney admired the man’s long clean lines, the cut of his hips, the pert curve of his ass when he turned, the sweep of his shoulders to his hips. Given how he had no tan lines, he probably spent a lot of time naked. Rodney wondered what it would be like, to run his hands over that smooth skin, feel those muscles shifting as the man moved above him or below him or -

The man tipped his head back and stretched, smiling, eyes closed.

No way.

Major Lorne?

Under Rodney’s increasingly shameless gaze, Major Lorne went through a series of impressively flexible yoga-like stretches, and Rodney’s lightning-fast genius brain cycled through all the possibilities that the man’s combination of strength and agility could offer in different situations, like in Rodney’s bed.

And then Major Lorne pulled on a pair of sweats, slung the towel over one shoulder, picked up a pair of flip-flops, and ambled back toward the city.

Rodney sank back in his chair, breathing hard.

Hot damn.

Then he remembered what he’d originally been doing, and he shifted his telescope so it was pointing back at the sky, and he set to mapping the stars once more.

The next day, after the weekly senior command briefing, Rodney asked before he could help himself, “Major, did you have a nice swim last night?”

Lorne looked at him, surprised. But then he said, “Yes, I did.”

“Good! Good. And it’s always wise to do cooldown stretches, after. So you don’t injure yourself. Atlantis needs you in top condition.”

“Why Rodney, I didn’t know you cared so much about fitness,” John drawled.

Dammit. Rodney thought fast. “Call it enlightened self-interest. I want to make sure Lorne can rescue us the next time you or Ronon does something crazy offworld.”

“That’s our McKay.” John clapped him on the shoulder and then ducked out of the conference room before Elizabeth could make him stay behind.

Lorne went to follow him, but as he passed Rodney, he leaned down and murmured, “Next time when I go for a swim, you should join me.” 

Rodney could only watch him go, blushing and stunned.

Two days later, he got an email.

_ Nice night for a swim, don’t you think? _

It was signed,  _ Evan. _


End file.
